Michigan at Iowa
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Well all we can think about when facing Iowa this Saturday is from last weekend is the twenty-eight rushing yards which averaged 1.0 yard per rush. The almost forty minutes of time of possession. Two drives that last longer than five plays and one drive that lasted longer than three minutes against Michigan State.
Well all those statements above have to improve, no doubt for Michigan to have a chance against Iowa who has a better defense than Michigan State.
Will Michigan get out of this funk the past couple of game in which they seem to be in a fog for long stretches of the game and then at the end try and rally the troops and pull out a win. Last weekend they came up a little short. Remember with a young team it is hard to predict what you will see game to game let along drive to drive on the field. Just like last week will we see the three and a half Michigan team or the last half of the quarter Michigan team that came back and tied the Spartans and force overtime.
Now for Iowa. What team will show up to play this week. Coach Ferentz has to be pulling his hair out trying to figure out if the team will play like they did against Penn State or the team that played against Northern Iowa and Arkansas State. This is a game we believe Iowa will not be overlooking and could very well be a statement game for the Hawkeye's.
If Michigan sees the Iowa team that played inspired football against Penn State this could be a long night for Michigan, but if they overlook Michigan this game it could be anybodies ball game.
Iowa will have some extra pressure on them as they have chosen this game as their homecoming game along with it be a national television primetime night game in which they will either be pretenders or contenders after this game against Michigan for the Big Ten championship. They have three tough road games after Michigan with Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State.
For Michigan does Dave Molk mean that much to this team? Without him does the entire offensive line shut down. Now Michigan has to play against maybe the best rush defense in the Big Ten, on the road, and at night. That's the bad news.
The good news is Iowa is very average offensively and Michigan should be able to limit the total number of points to somewhere between 17 to 23 points, but of course if we have offensive turnovers in our red zone or special teams blunder like we had against Michigan State those point numbers could be higher.
Strength of Iowa offense is the strong running game lead by the best offensive line in the Big Ten. Freshmen running backs have picked up the slack and are playing well. Iowa has a solid wide receiver in Stossel especially when Iowa runs the stretch play. Also remember they are coaches by former Michigan wide receiver coach "Soup" Campbell.
The problem for Michigan is can they get enough offense to win the game. We always talk about which players need good games well this week we are saying Coach Rod and Coach Magee need good games. This offense needs to get in sync and take some drives down the field to give the Michigan defense a break against a pretty strong and physical Iowa team.
They need to create some drives that not only keep the chains moving in first down, but to create drives that moves the field position to help the defense when the offense cannot score. Need to win the turnover battle and not cost themselves dumb penalties which turn into drive killer. Drop passes need to be a minimum as well because that deflates drives as well.
They need to try to keep Iowa off balanced as much as possible. Michigan wont be able to line up and run the football on this team so that means Tate and the receivers need big games. This is a young team and sometimes they are fun to watch and sometimes its excruciating, but it's never boring so we expect a great game Saturday night.
Strength of the Iowa defense is the back seven lead by a solid group of linebackers.
Key to this game is Michigan's defense has to get off the field.
Iowa is a big physical team and if they can slow the game down , wear out Michigan's defense, and keep Michigan's offense off the field it could be a long night.
The Michigan defense needs to jam the Iowa tight ends on the line of scrimmage is a must. Also the must not over run things, because Iowa uses cut back scheme similar to Ohio State and our / Michigan's defense has tendency to over run or pursue at times.
Again, keeping safeties tight is very good strategy here. Let them read through the tight end to the near back. Thing that Iowa does well that worries us most is play action passing game especially if they can get the running game going where Michigan will cheat the safeties up.
With safeties tight and being used as run defenders tight ends can get leverage on them in big hurry. Other worry is if you jam / knock the snot out of tight ends your contain guys can get caught up and have problems disengaging.
Michigan will be very competitive against a somewhat inconsistent Iowa team. When it comes down to predicting this game everybody had to ask themselves which team will show up to play this game for both Iowa and Michigan.
Go Blue Michigan Wolverine -- Predictions
CoachBt:
Michigan 21
Iowa 27
Coach Webb:
Michigan 17
Iowa 20
MaizeMan:
Michigan 13
Iowa 21
Doc4Blu:
Michigan 17
Iowa 31
Steve:
Michigan 28
Iowa 20
ErocWolverine:
Michigan 21
Iowa 32
Weather could be an issue in this game and all the predictions were turned in before the weather forecast came out.
Thanks for stopping by Go Blue Michigan Wolverine
If you have any questions please E-Mail
Written by CoachBt, Coach Webb, Doc4Blu and ErocWolverine
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